In politics and morality, whoever controls the terminology controls the debate. Linguist and rising Democratic Party go-to man George Lakoff says conservatives know this, and have developed a network of well-financed think-tanks to generate linguistic frames that help them further their agendas. Progressives, on the other hand, accept the frames already in circulation, and so are losing the ever-important war of words. Lakoff explains his theory to Brooke.
ARTIST: Branford Marsalis TRACK: Judas Iscariot ALBUM: The Dark Keys LABEL: Sony
BREAK I: ARTIST: Leif Ove Andsnes TRACK: Arietta (Op.12, No.1) ALBUM: Edvard Grieg: Lyric Pieces LABEL: EMI
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"Judas Iscariot"
Branford Marsalis
A Massachusetts judge is suing the Boston Herald for libel - not an easy thing for a public figure to prove. His success at this point depends less on the actual article in question than it does on what its author said about the article on TV. Alicia Mundy covered the conflict for the Washington Post, and joins Bob to discuss what happens when reporters roam free.
ARTIST: Abdullah Ibrahim TRACK: For Monk ALBUM: African Dawn LABEL: Enja
In 1986, Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu went public with evidence that Israel had a comprehensive nuclear weapons program. Israel has never admitted as much, and the divulging of secret information landed Vanunu in prison for 18 years. He was released earlier this year on the condition that he not talk to foreign journalists. But almost immediately, he did just that, and with such regularity that he was re-arrested this fall. Bob talks with Vanunu biographer Yoel Cohen.
If the zeitgeist of a nation is to be found in its reality television programming, what are we to make of the latest addition to the Israeli airwaves? In "The Ambassador," 14 young contestants travel to the U.S. and Europe to engage hostile audiences and promote Israeli policy. The prize is a one-year contract with a pro-Israel media relations firm in New York. Brooke talks to Nachman Shai, a former Israeli military spokesperson and one of the show's judges.
ARTIST: Leif Ove Andsnes TRACK: March of the Trolls (Op. 54, No.3) ALBUM: Edvard Grieg: Lyric Pieces LABEL: EMI
Newspaper editors around the world have their knickers in a twist over the dominance of TV news, the rising costs of newsprint, and the increasing age of their readership. No papers are safe, not even journalistic standard bearers as great as France's Le Monde. But do Le Monde's travails reflect something deeper than hard times at another daily? Frank Browning reports from Paris that it may also mark the end of an era in the nation where the Enlightenment was born.
Listeners weigh in on the embedded reporter with an embedded question, as well as the media's usage of the term "evangelical."
ARTIST: Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grappelly TRACK: H.C.Q. Strut ALBUM: Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grappelly with the Quintet of the Hot Club of France LABEL: London
For more than a hundred years, National Geographic has brought the world's furthest flung corners into American living rooms. Offering glimpses of such wonders as Neanderthal language patters, Cambodian Buddhist temples, and caterpillars that fire feces at a velocity of 4.3 feet per second, the magazine has fueled the imaginations of countless armchair explorers. Brooke speaks with Robert Poole, who chronicled the magazine's history in a new book.
Highlights from Past Shows
When it comes to informing the public, President Bush and his Cabinet have tended to avoid what Bush calls the media "filter." But an embedded reporter in Kuwait this week slipped through the administration’s filter, by planting one of his own questions with a soldier at a Q&A session with Donald Rumsfeld. Reporters had been banned from the event, but Rumsfeld was forced to address an issue he’d previously ignored. Bob and Brooke mull it over.
For years, reporters in Ukraine have been told by the government what news to cover and how to cover it. But after last month's deeply flawed presidential elections, a sort of media mutiny took place, as dozens of journalists publicly demanded the right to call the shots as they saw them. The owners capitulated, and suddenly Ukrainians are getting balanced news coverage. Brooke talks to Fedir Sydoruk, one of the first journalists to resign because of censorship.
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
